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AT&T to invest $14 billion in network expansion

Over the next three years, AT&T will spend $14 billion to improve and expand its wireline and wireless networks for the provision of broadband services, announced AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson during a press conference in New York on Wednesday. Dubbed “Project Velocity IP,” the initiative rests on the premise that high-speed Internet connections will play an increasingly vital role in the lives of AT&T customers in the years to come. Company executives anticipate that more than 90% of AT&T’s revenues will be driven by wireless broadband, wireless data and managed IT services by 2016. Outlining plans to expand AT&T’s fourth-generation long term evolution (LTE) wireless broadband network coverage to 300 million people by the end of 2014, Stephenson told reporters that his company would invest $8 billion in wireless network improvements and would spend an additional $6 billion to upgrade AT&T’s fiber-optic wireline network facilities. (Previously, AT&T had planned to expand LTE network coverage to 250 million people by the end of 2013.) Improvements to AT&T’s wireline network infrastructure are expected to facilitate the expansion of AT&T’s U-Verse IPTV and voice over Internet protocol services to an additional 8.5 million customers by late 2015. Stephenson further noted that these improvements would boost maximum U-Verse download speeds to 75 Mbps, which is three times faster than the service currently offered by AT&T. Describing Project Velocity as “a major commitment to invest in 21st century communications infrastructure for the United States and bring high-speed Internet connectivity,” Stephenson proclaimed, “we have the opportunity to improve AT&T’s revenue growth and cost structure for years to come.” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, meanwhile, lauded AT&T’s plan as one that “adds to nearly $200 billion of investment in wireless and wireline broadband networks since 2009” and that also offers “proof positive that the climate for the investment and innovation in the U.S. communications sector is healthy.”